


Harry Hart: Stormchaser

by Jakowic



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Canon Rewrite, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, Storm Chasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-08 18:22:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15249237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakowic/pseuds/Jakowic
Summary: He doesn’t remember anything. But the storms do. And that’s all he has.





	Harry Hart: Stormchaser

**Author's Note:**

> i started this project sometime last summer after reading a story by jibrailis and it's sat in my drafts, mostly unloved and untouched. i've finally finished it and i'm so glad because it's started to plague my every waking moment.
> 
> disclaimer: i do not actually know if the house near the intersection of Ocean Shores Blvd and Butterclam St is, in fact, occupied by a British superspy with amnesia and an affinity for butterflies, but if it is, i hope he's enjoying Washington State weather. 
> 
> anyways, here's all the meta i basically accepted as canon about Harry and Hamish's past until the golden circle easily smashed it to bits with a giant hammer! enjoy! fuck canon!
> 
> also VERY special thank you to my friends Theo and Diya who know nothing especial about Kingsman but still sat through this story and assured me it didn't totally suck. i love them very much

**Harry Hart: Stormchaser**

There’s nothing about his life that’s average, he remembers. He remembers his mum best, though, her rosy cheeks and her easy questions, how her mouth had a slight lisp and the way she walked really fast. He hasn’t seen her in a long while, he knows that much. He also has no clue who the people that picked him up are, but it’s not a worry because besides the lack of his eye, he’s just fine. They’ve fixed him up nice, haven’t they, and now, besides having very little clue as to what else he should do, he chooses to leave Kentucky. They give him a nice looking Honda Civic and send him on his way with a map of the states surrounding Kentucky and a cellphone that could definitely do better.

He has his butterfly books sitting nice in the backseat, borrowed clothes in a suitcase set sitting in the trunk, and he feels both full and empty all at once. He loves his butterflies, something he’d love to study all day, but some part of him comes out, like in a dream, whispering _isn’t that a little mild-mannered for you?_ He doesn’t know what to say to that because his whole life has been mild and quite mannered, thank you very much. Someone, his dad probably, always said ‘manners maketh man’ and drilled that into him, like anything on the planet could make him forget. He drives slowly, makes sure to stay on the right side of the road and looks around, extra cautious because of the rain (the road is empty) and switches lanes. His biggest nightmare has always been a car crash, doesn’t know why. It just seems very common, that kind of death.

The sky overhead is dark with rain clouds, and the patter of it against the windshield is comforting, almost. He knows nothing about Kentucky, but he wonders if this kind of weather is normal for August, how the monarchs must be feeling about all of it. It’s almost lonely, on the highway, no sort of traffic and no one walking through the rain. He spots another car, occasionally, but other than that, it’s just him and the rain. When he gets sick of the sound of his own breathing, he reaches over and fiddles with the radio. Eventually, he lands on a classical music station and even though it’s layered over with soft static, he loves it and hums along. His mum used to play piano, he thinks, fuzzily. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was someone else. He thinks of the Papilio Machaon, whose colours are grey leading all the way up to the markings on the hindwing, where it colours in purples and blues and is bright and dark all at once, like the storm Harry’s in.

He thinks he likes this, the quiet, just him and butterflies and the rain.

He crosses over the Ohio River on the I-65 and manages to stop at a Holiday Inn in Clarksville, Indiana. It’s not even remotely nice, it smells like mothballs and old sex and part of him stiffens in terror at the idea of crawling into the bed sheets and a larger part of him recoils at the idea of the floor. So, in the end, he drinks some water, changes to pyjamas and crawls into the mite-infested bed with a copy of _Butterfly: External Parts Book (External Anatomy of the Insect)_ and settles in rather… well, comfortably, if not nicely. It’s not a luxury, like home had always been, and his mind wanders back home, thinks of his mum’s face, even though it’s a bit fuzzy. He tries to think, like when the Americans asked him what he did, where he was from, of the last time he spoke to his mum. When it comes back with nothing, he’s not worried. They’d told him about the amnesia, and he’d said _it’s fine, I know who I was_ , and they’d largely left that alone.

He takes off his eyepatch because it itches him if he wears it too long and sets it on top of _Butterfly: External Parts Book (External Anatomy of the Insect),_ right next to the lamp on the nightstand. He closes his eyes and breathes in and out, steady as he can manage. He’s always had trouble falling asleep, always took too long before he’d get bored of waiting. He never had trouble waking up, flying up like a shot, tension in all his muscles, but it was never graceful. He knew someone, once, who slept easy and woke up nicely, he thinks. He knows because part of him jerks into an immediate smile and another part goes _why are you doing that_. It doesn’t matter, anyway, not like he’s ever going back.

 

:::

 

Harry’s in London, driving a taxi cab and climbing out at a tailor’s. He heads inside, past the check-in clerk and all the way to the back room, where there’s a secret wall that he knows exactly how to open. Inside, waiting for him, is a young man with dark hair, bright brown eyes and glasses, looking at Harry like they’ve always known each other. He thinks there’s something familiar about the boy, maybe it’s the way his palms curl against the table he’s leaning on, maybe it’s the flash of concern in his eyes when he steps forward, cups Harry’s face and says, “You’ve got to stop getting into fights, mate,” but Harry knows it, knows it like he’s dying for it.

He breathes,“Merlin,” but that’s not quite right, is it? He watches the boy’s eyes as the room behind the tailor’s melts and becomes army barracks, and he leads Harry to a bed, grabbing bandages and working them around Harry’s torso, like this is a repeated thing.

He says conversationally, “Elon’s mask shook up the world,”

And Harry, staring at the boy like he’ll die if he doesn’t, can only think to reply, “What.”

And suddenly they’re not in the army barracks, noise bustling like a background to the way the boy breathes and Harry just stares at him, knows him so well but can’t remember from where, why he’s dreaming about him, why he’s studying the curve of his mouth like it’ll drip holy water. They’re at home, and a puppy nudges his feet while the boy sketches a polynomial equation in the air, saying something about technology science Harry doesn’t really understand, biology more his game, but remains riveted anyway. He’s older now, face gaunt and hair glossier, Scottish accent thick; and makes his vowels jump in a way Harry was always told _not proper, not at all_ , but loves the lilt of it anyway. They sit, too close together, on the red couch in the sitting room, fire crackling green in the grate.

When Harry wakes to sunlight through the blinds he tries to remember his dream, why it was so important, but it slips away within seconds, like water down a pipe. He shrugs, sits up slowly and sways only a little on his way to the bathroom sink. He doesn’t shave, it’s only morning stubble, and brushes his teeth, takes a slow shower and gathers his things for the road again. He figures: why not, he’s here, might as well look around, spend some time in gardens, studying butterflies before he tries anything. They gave him a credit card, too, and some information to give to police if he ever decides, hey Canada, butterflies up there in the spring. There’s a lot of money on it too, he’d found out, when he found a pin machine. It’s comforting, though, to know he can at least buy gasoline and food.

He steps out into the morning and inhales the warm air, knows that the seasons are slipping from August to September, maybe he’ll meet a few more rainstorms. It’s a shame he spent most of the summer in that white room without any windows. He’s gone awfully pale.

He drives on the I-65 for almost five hours before he takes a random exit and ends up in a tiny town called Perry Crossing. He stops at an ARCO refuelling station and stands at the screen, staring blankly. He eventually figures it out and heads into the little shop right next to it while the numbers tick away. He browses the aisles and finds nothing that looks even a little bit healthy but grabs a bag of crisps and beef jerky. At the counter, where he waits while the cashier helps someone do a Slurpee, he spots a little disposable camera. It’s the black kind that you have to buy more film to keep taking pictures, the kind where you have to go to a pharmacy to get the prints. He picks it up, turns it over in his hands and puts it on top of the pile, wondering why he wants it even as he pays.

The cashier smiles blandly. “Would you like a bag?”

“Yes, please,” Harry says.

He carries his little grey bag back to the car and unhooks himself from the gas nozzle. He pulls out of the station and slowly pulls over to a curb so that he can consult the map. He decides he can drive on I-65 for awhile, see where the road and exhaustion take him. The freeway is crowded, but moving at a reasonable - if slightly sedate - pace. He wonders how many people are like him, wandering because they’ve got no one else and nothing else to hold them. It’s a bit of a lonely thought, but Harry thinks about his butterflies, how rare socialization is and feels like he’s understood, even if he’s alone.

He drives and drives, following a gold Subaru until it exits. He doesn’t remember learning to drive but his body does, even if the controls are foreign. He thinks it’s that the cars are different. Without the gold Subaru, he feels lost and he knows it’s not fair to pin it all on another car, but it had been a focal point, something to structure his path around. Suddenly, on the I-65 caught somewhere between Austin and Crothersville in the middle of Indiana, Harry Hart feels smaller than a Brephidium exilis - Western Pygmy Blue. He’s at a loss. No friends, no ties, almost nothing to call his own beyond this car - and he’s got to decide what to do with his life. Whether or not he’ll amount to anything. He’s forty-four (based on his teeth - that’s what the woman from wherever he was said) and he doesn’t know what he wants to be.

Butterflies. That seems like a safe place to start. Something he knows.

An hour later he stops in a place called Corn Brook and smirks a little at the ‘Welcome’ sign when he enters. He finds a Super 8 motel and crashes. The next three days are spent exactly like that, staying in towns named similarly stupid things like Corn Brook and travelling along the I-65 until his fingers ache from gripping the wheel and his legs cramp from the hours of sitting. He hasn’t had a strong appetite for about a year, and it hasn’t come back even once. He eats, mostly out of necessity, alternating between fast foods and easily prepared foods in dingy motel microwaves. Everything tastes like mashed potatoes.

Days later, when he sees the tourist signs, suggesting he follow this exit to end up at Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis, he sighs and wonders what he has to lose. His body could stand some exercise, and so could… so could. Something. It tickles the back of his brain, sits there and Harry scrabbles for it, needing the memory, the connection, just for a moment, even if it slips away just as soon as it comes. When a car honks loudly, Harry realizes he’s slowed almost to a standstill on a freeway among not-quite heavy traffic. Correcting himself hastily, Harry follows the signs to the park.

When he gets there he sighs out into the open air. The day is grey-ish, lonely and cold enough to ensure Harry is wearing a sturdy brown leather coat (the only thing he picked out on his own) and that he’s alone out here. The clouds hang heavy in the sky, ominous while still letting rays of light pass through. Harry lets out a harsh breath, tired and cranky and feeling silly for hoping this would make him feel better. He wanders on the concrete walking path surrounding the grass and trees until he makes it to a sturdy wooden bench, overlooking a children’s playset. The wind picks up a little, tousling his hair in the wind and Harry wonders, hands in his pockets, why he’s hesitating. He’s alone out here, no one to see him and he’s sick of pretending like he wants to be an adult.

A raven passes high overhead, crowing loudly into the empty air, and Harry’s control snaps. He takes his hands out of his pockets and races forward, letting out a whoop into the deafening roar of the wind. He feels about eight years old, sitting down on the swing and kicking off. He gasps into the air, breath turning to fog, laughing at absolutely nothing. He stays like that for awhile, swinging like he’s a kid again, stomach jumping around on the down and grinning at the sun behind clouds on the up. He stops eventually, because his arse hurts and his fingers are aching and red from gripping freezing cold metal. He wanders back to the bench, still feeling light and brand new.

He sits down, no real plan in mind, just the desire to stay. He’s had an ache in him for awhile. Right now, that ache is gone, and maybe it won’t come back as long as he stays here. He doesn’t count the minutes but the sun is dimming behind the clouds when he spots a couple walking their child through the leaves, bundled up in scarves and hats. They each hold one of her hands, lifting her up as she squeals, delighted. He watches them pass, towards the car park, opposite of the direction they came. He hurts, watching them laugh as they walk down the lane. He wonders if he might’ve had something like that, if maybe he was the child at some point.

His glee from earlier fades away, as the air around him turns from grey to electric blue. He can’t ever recall seeing the sky this colour before and it makes the corner of his mouth lift. He puts his hands back in his pockets, relaxing against the sturdy wood of the bench, letting his legs widen. Someone in his head chastises him, but Harry doesn’t have to listen to bossy voices in his head. The storm breaks over him, sudden and heavy, large, fat, warm raindrops fall all around him, soaking his denim pants and making the material cling to his skin uncomfortably. He hasn’t even had time to stand up yet. When he does, water gathering on his jacket slides down and lands on his shoes, snaking inside and reaching his socks.

Harry scowls, shivering, water droplets from his hair drips into his good eye and trails down his neck, sneaking inside his collar. He licks his lips and speed walks toward his car. _That’s just luck,_ he thinks bitterly, even while overcome with the urge to laugh at the sky.

 

:::

 

Harry wakes up what must be hours later, no idea where he is. Sunlight is pouring through stained glass windows, pooling around his bed, which is sitting in the middle of a cathedral. There are no doors leading to the room, high-ceilinged and with white marble floors. The room is a circle, the windows so up high Harry doesn’t think he could reach them, ever. On the edges of the room, there are pillars, in between the pillars a darkness that seems so all-consuming Harry feels self-conscious looking at it. The room is in encased in silence, absolutely no sound, he can’t even hear his own breathing. It’s like this room invented silence, like this is the place where all noise comes to die.

He swallows, looking back toward the windows, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, gingerly pressing his bare feet to the cold floor. He expects it to be cold. It’s not. He reaches behind him, searching for a blanket. He doesn’t feel it. Cold horror tips in his stomach as he realizes that nothing here has texture. He stares at his hands, wondering who took his ability to feel away. Breathing hard and trying not to panic, Harry shouts for help but nothing sounds back except for the echo of his own voice. He stumbles out of bed, and the white of his t-shirt absorbs all the light through the windows. He paces the room, starting to hyperventilate, yelling some more.

“I don’t want to die!” he tells the ceiling. It doesn’t answer back.

Harry kneels, hand reaching out to catch him against a pillar as he retches bile. He looks up, slowly, raising his eyes to the wall of nothing in front of him. It calls him, and it seems like a good idea, so he reaches out into the darkness, hoping it’s just empty air. He’s hit with a wave of screaming, words he’s never heard before leaking into his brain, deafening him. He rips his hand away and it stops instantly. Harry pants, sinking to the floor, back pressed against the pillar. He laces his fingers into his hair, squeezing his head, screwing his eyes shut tight. He can’t even feel the strands of his own hair in his hands.

Then there are hands on him, kind hands with calluses on the tips of fingers, tugging Harry’s hands away from his hair, tilting his head up. Harry meets warm brown eyes framed by wire glasses and floppy black hair. The boy is the same one from the barracks, no older than Harry (twenty-two) and he’s dressed in jeans and a loose jumper. The boy gives Harry a tentative, wobbly smile. He holds both of Harry’s hands in his, searching his eyes for something that must be there.

“Hamish,” Harry breathes, relieved.

“Hello,” Hamish says, hands skimming up Harry’s arms, setting his nerves on fire with electricity.

Harry takes one of his own and tries to feel the material of his shirt. It doesn’t work, but when Hamish presses their foreheads together, Harry can feel it, can feel it like Hamish is pressed up all over his body. Harry lets Hamish touch him for a long time, wherever he needs, Harry’s arms, Harry’s bare legs, Harry’s eyebrows and the dip of Harry’s collarbone. It leaves him warm and shaking and exposed, sitting in a room with marble floors and dappled in multi-colored sunlight.

Hamish doesn’t kiss him, but Harry wishes he would, wants it like he can’t remember ever wanting before. Harry lifts his own hand, skims it over Hamish’s cheekbone, thumb ghosting over his bottom lip gently. Harry opens his mouth, wanting to say _kiss me_ but stops at the last second because his throat is so dry he doesn’t know if it will even sound like anything. Hamish exhales, slow and steady. He opens his eyes and they look at each other like that for a very long time, alone in this place where good things come to die.

Hamish kisses Harry then, and he tastes like honey and everything Harry didn’t know he wanted. His hand automatically reaches up to knot in the hair at the back of Hamish’s neck, the other stroking his cheek, sliding back to his jaw, angling Hamish so he’s crowding over Harry. Hamish’s hands are bunched tightly in Harry’s shirt. When Hamish leans back, he loosens his fists and looks at Harry, pupils blown wide and dark, breathing hard, mouth red and swollen.

“You remember,” Hamish says softly, like it’s a wonderful thing.

Harry sits up, gasping like he’s come up from a deep dive, and he’s in his motel room. He looks around and the walls are grey, the sheets are grey and even the curtains filtering the afternoon light are grey. He looks around the dingy room, dust floating through the light beams, and remembers those brown eyes from his dream… dreams. His chest is still tight with panic, knuckles fisted in his sheets so tight they’re white. His heart is in his throat and when he tries to recall the dream he thinks of eternal screaming, locked in an echo chamber. It was probably a nightmare. He gets up, feeling that _nightmare_ isn’t quite right. He stretches, underused muscles in his back pulling tight, making him groan. He putters around the sad room, putting his stuff back together.

He pulls out dry jeans, balling up the still-wet ones and stuffing them to the bottom of his suitcase. As he neatly stacks up his butterfly books, lovingly wrapping them in a fluffy towel, stolen from the Corn Brook motel, he spots that little disposable camera, still packaged in its cellophane. He picks it up, heading back to bed and flopping down on it, adjusting himself so he’s cross-legged, sheets wrapped around his boxers and waist. He struggles with taking off the plastic, grinning triumphantly when he succeeds and scanning the back of the box for instructions which are all, conveniently, in Cantonese. A roll of film is rattling loosely at the bottom of the box, and he takes it out, carefully placing it inside the cartridge as the pictures tell him. He fiddles with it for a moment, turning it around to squint into the lens, wondering why he can’t see anything through the little window on the right side round. Nothing is there, and he leans away, frustrated. The light flashes in his good eye, clicking and whirring. Harry yelps and drops it onto his lap, where it flashes off again. He sighs, defeated, tucking the camera into his jacket, laid over his bedside table where it had dried nicely.

He gets up and leaves, smiling blandly at the check-out girl who gives him a funny look. Maybe it’s the eye-patch. He stops off at a place called Love’s Travel Station and pays 2.70$ for gas. The harsh lighting of the truck stop casts nasty shadows on his face while he wanders around the store, browsing for nothing.

 

:::

 

 

A storm starts up as he drives into the next state, raindrops fat and heavy against the roof of the car, and Harry leans over the steering wheel to peer up at the clouds, heavy and saturated and pouring, _dumping_ , gallons and gallons of water onto the road in front of him, traffic a slow, cautious crawl. His tires splash through a puddle hidden in a divet of the road.

 _This,_ he thinks, a little bit hysterically, _should be enough to fill an ocean._

Logically, he knows it’s unsound, but he lets himself think it anyway. The rain sounds harsher than rain, like a thousand tiny vengeful little bees hurtling themselves at the roof of his car, hitting it like they’re trying to break through the metal to soak the top of his head, his hands, his thighs. The car in front of him grounds to a halt and stays there. When ten minutes pass and none of the other cars look like they’ll be going anywhere soon, Harry looks out the window wistfully.

He wonders, vaguely, if he’d ever done anything strange or impulsive or bizarre in his life. He doesn’t remember that life, so maybe he should do those things now, just so he has a chance to remember them. His hands clench sporadically on the steering wheel before he gives up, taking his jacket and tossing it onto the passenger seat. He opens the door and steps out onto the shoulder of the road.

He looks up at the sky, squinting with his one good eye, but everything is grey and the angle is all wrong, so that he can’t tell where the clouds end and the rain begins.

He climbs back in when the red car behind him honks a little, concerned.

His mouth is dry, he thinks when he lays down that night in a Quality Inn, and he closes his eyes. He dreams, then, of a secret door behind the mirror at a tailor’s, dreams about the stiff shoulders of a boy, someone who made him proud. It happens but doesn’t happen, like his brain is telling him things he’s already known. He’s staring into unfamiliar blue eyes, the quirk of the boy’s grin.

“You’ve been gone long enough,” he says, accent less posh than Harry’s. “Harry,” he says, and his voice goes blurry, like he’s being drowned out with water. He feels his heart quicken, adrenaline spiking in his veins. “Harry,” the boy says, sounding a million miles off but right in front of him, “it’s time for you to come home.”

Harry hears the click of a light switch flipping, hears the rushing of water before he feels the water, pooling around his feet and filling the room, getting higher and higher. He doesn’t know what to do other than swim, so he kicks his feet and breathes.

It keeps filling up the room, the army barracks, spilling out through the cracks in the door, leaking out the windows that show them the two story drop. Water touches the light fixtures on the ceiling fills the whole room with a blue-white haze. Harry takes a gasping breath against the little space between ceiling and water and dives, looking for a way out.

When the water is gone, all flushed down the toilets, an hour later, Harry finds he’s not even a little bit damp. Hamish slides out of the darkness of the corner of the room, fixes Harry with a concerned stare.

“You ever think about your life after this?”

And Harry does what he always does when asked.

He smiles.

 

:::

 

Harry wakes, then, and he thinks he remembers something.

 

:::

 

The feel of the Glock the supervisor presses into his hand is startlingly familiar, warm and heavy in his palm. He doesn’t want to think about why he knows this gun, why he’d known almost every gun they’d offered him to look at out front, but he can feel it. The supervisor, a man who has dyed his beard and hair blond but not his eyebrows, leans against the edge of the cubicle, watching Harry methodically take apart the gun and put it back together again. The doctor had told him, back in Kentucky, that his body would remember things faster than his head. That his body might not remember he’s got only one good eye. Harry looks up with interest at the target, blocking out the man watching him.

He raises the gun, aims and fires. The first one misses, clipping the edge of the paper. He’s surprised at how ready he is for the recoil, how good it feels to squeeze the trigger. He tries again, and again and again, until he’s tearing bullets through the same hole in the target’s head, widening it with every shot. The supervisor whistles, low and impressed.

There’s nothing about his life that’s average.

Autumn is leaking into winter, October getting determinedly colder and colder and Harry passed through Illinois and Indiana, so the only place left to go is Nebraska. He sees the decorations in the grocery store he stops at, orange banners declaring a Halloween sale, plastic bats and spiders dangling from the rafters, green witches peering at him from under the brims of their paper hats, taped firmly to the wall. He stares uncomprehendingly for a moment, so gaudy and so _American_ , that for a moment Harry genuinely forgets he enjoys this holiday.

He thinks, rather critically, examining a carton of blueberries, that it would be better if there were more butterflies.

He gets back to his Days Inn and shuffles the food into a fridge. He flops onto the bed, like his body is much younger than it is now. It’s a sense memory, the one of falling onto someone else’s bed, shooting a careful grin at the ceiling. Friendship, he thinks dizzily, staring nothing. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the little disposable camera and takes a picture of the mussed sheets, the crooked pillow. He’d taken one of the target, two bullet holes in the corner, one giant one in the centre of the head. He takes pictures to prove to himself he’s not totally lost, he can still remember.

He knows there are gaps now but it’s not reassuring, just frustrating, because all he can think about is a high school obsession with butterflies and now he’s forty-four with years that he’s lived, years someone else has lived for him. Years in which he’d learned to fire every type of gun under the sun and he’d had a friend that let him fall onto the bed.

He falls into a restless sleep. He doesn’t dream.

 

:::

 

The next two weeks are mostly a blur, Harry sitting quietly in the library just outside the city he’s staying in, reading his butterfly books and instructional manuals on computers at his whim. On Tuesday of the third week, Harry gets caught on the highway with two other cars when the wind picks up and starts swirling ominously, dragging up dust and plants. Harry and the other cars slow to a stop, and Harry can feel the pulse in his neck quicken at the sight.

Slowly, the other cars back up and make a U-turn, but Harry’s transfixed. He can see it, miles ahead in the distance, a forming tornado. It seems so ferocious and large that Harry feels inconsequential, so ripped open and like _nothing_ that it steals the breath straight from his lungs. A silver Crossover speeds by him, heading straight for the tornado, some sort of complicated satellite mounted on top. A red SUV follows it but slows and stops a few feet ahead. Harry watches it with interest, the lights flashing on it as the driver’s side door opens and out steps a man. He struggles through the wind and bangs on Harry’s window. Harry, curious, rolls it down.

“You should go!” The man shouts without preamble. “The winds will pick up, it’s gonna get dangerous!”

“I like the storms!” Harry shouts back over the howling, dust manages to get in his mouth. The man hesitates.

“Listen,” he says, leaning close. He’s so close Harry can make out almost every individual raindrop smeared on his glasses. The man struggles, reaching into his pocket. He withdraws a business card that Harry takes with growing confusion. “You should go, but, like, call me.”

Harry watches him dash back to the car and speed off. There’s no fancy equipment attached to the SUV and Harry looks down at the cardstock with apprehension. The font is nondescript, blue, says _Westley Atton, Education Consultant_ and lists business hours, an email and a phone number. Harry takes out his phone as he watches the tornado drift across the fields and programs the first person into his life.

He falls asleep in his car in the parking lot of the Days Inn.

 

:::

 

A branch snaps under his boots as Harry trails along with his brigade through the tropical jungle of one of the Falkland Islands. They slow, on automatic, straining for any other out of place sounds. Nothing comes forth. The heat is oppressive and it makes his skin sticky under his gear, inside his boots, on his hands.

Their breathing starts to become louder and more laboured as the hours wear on and they continue to trek, looking for something. The machine gun is heavy in Harry’s hands, but his arms don’t ache. He reaches up to wipe the sweat from his eyes when a pink elephant darts between his legs and weaves around his soldiers. It’s funny, Harry hadn’t thought there were any nearby any longer. His footsteps slow to a stop and the man next to him does the same. He cocks his head at Harry. He shrugs in response and off in the distance he can hear the trumpeting of a wild herd. Harry smiles at nothing, inexplicably glad of the freedom the elephants have here. He looks up at the sky between the canopy of trees, and a migration of every kind of butterfly Harry has ever read about flies past them, over them, next to them. They’re all abnormally large, but it must just be the tropic climate.

Harry wakes with a crick in his neck and a smile on his face. He looks at himself, puzzled, in the rearview mirror. He unlocks his car and stretches out the kinks in his back, licking at the buildup of plaque on his teeth with some morbid scientific curiosity. The air smells wet and the concrete looks darker that usual. He stumbles through the lobby and down the dim hall with terrible wallpaper to his room and kicks the door closed gratefully. He leans against the counter of the kitchenette and sighs out into the stale air. The sky outside is blanketed with grey clouds, the sun valiantly attempting to break through where the overcast is thinner, filtering through the faded yellow curtains like moonlight. He decides he should start his morning.

He remembers when he’s making himself coffee. He remembers with a ferocity that hits him in the chest and makes it hard to breathe.

He remembers standing on the streets of London, crumpled piece of paper, a tiny scrap torn from the edge of something, crushed in his clenched hand as he looked up at the unfamiliar apartment building, mouth dry. His heart didn’t race, he’d served too long for something like a mere uncertainty to make him afraid. Still, he wasn’t sure he was where he should be. He’d made it there quite by accident, intending to go out to get food like his mother had suggested, but he’d found the paper in his coat pocket. He’d not been known for his exceptional decision making.

Harry didn’t know how long is acceptable to stand outside an apartment building without doing anything, but he’d probably passed the marker from ‘strange’ into ‘cause for concern’. The rainwater snuck down his collar, plastering his hair to his forehead, dripping from his hands and the edges from his coat, ruining his trousers. He went to leave forever, hopefully, no one had seen him so he could pretend this lapse hadn’t happened at all, when his escape is foiled.

“Harry?” Someone asked. Harry turned.

Hamish was standing on the sidewalk, startled eyes bright behind his glasses.

In the memory, the breath Harry had sighed out into the cold rainy air had looked heavy and hovered for a moment before condensing away.

“Hello,” memory-Harry had said, and Hamish’s returning smile was golden.

There’s nothing beyond that, no accompanying explanation of _who_ Hamish is, just his name tangled within the messy sense-memory that makes Harry’s fingers shake. He presses them against the hot ceramic of his coffee cup and thinks, or tries to think, of where he might’ve met Hamish. He thinks of the rolling grounds of home, the hedges that grew along the path into the garden and the curl of something tight in his stomach at all times. How before that memory, Harry had started to live in his own chest, strung too tight and too _different_ to feel comfortable even with his own family. Hamish had felt like a relief.

That, he remembers. He was in the army, and Hamish had felt safe.

He finds the little disposable camera sitting on the bedside table. Harry snaps a picture of the kitchenette and his steaming cup of coffee.

It takes two days in which Harry goes through three books on civil lawsuits before he remembers the number plugged into his phone. The contact name just lists Westley as _Storm Guy_ so Harry didn’t forget where he’d met him. As if Harry was regularly adding people he didn’t know well to his contacts. Harry, still stuck on Hamish, trying to remember a last name, doesn’t really have a solid plan when he picks it up and dials.

It rings four times and Harry considers hanging up and leaving the country. It is supremely weird to call a stranger after one meeting, unless the purpose is to date one another, which is a prospect Harry finds alarming and too out-of-depth to even entertain the notion. The phone clicks and a sleepy-slow drawl on the other end makes Harry force himself to _get it together._

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Harry says, unsure. “Hello. You told me to call you. We met during that tornado?”

There’s a grunt on the other end, then some rustling. Westley’s voice comes out clearer this time. “Oh, yeah, dude, I’m Wes.”

“Harry,” says Harry.

“So,” Westley grunts on the other end. “Harry,” he says and his voice sounds further away. “You said you liked the storms. You chase?”

“Chase,” Harry repeats blankly.

“Chase,” Westley agrees, and explains it to him.

 

:::

 

Westley Atton is twenty-eight, is an education consultant that works primarily with schools and parents up in Massachusetts and he doesn't like cats. He works for months on the road, and he has a secretary at an office he admits he rarely steps foot into. He spends most of his time with this rag-tag crew, which is made up of a woman called Lillian and her other half, Ahmed Bertomy, and scrawny college student called Mark Satoe. Lillian is twenty-nine, or close to it, and works with a weather station, something she’s passionate about beyond words. Ahmed is a professor of climatology and he’s writing a thesis paper on global climate change.

“Which,” Westley says over the phone, slightly quieter, Harry can hear him walking somewhere, “I reckon there are already enough in the world, but he does what he wants.”

Harry doesn’t know anything about thesis essays on global climate change, so he opts not to respond. Westley says Mark is built like a bird, that is to say, strange and skinny with beady eyes, and he’s trying to get a degree to go into some profession or another that involves storms. He’s smart, but Westley doesn’t listen to him because he’s still a kid and Westley consults kids his age. Lillian doesn’t like Mark and Mark doesn’t pretend to like any of them and Ahmed wears glasses, which Westley thinks are just there for him to hide his face behind, but Harry can hear the way his voice goes soft when he talks about his little group.

“And you?” Harry asks when they’re talking about why they chase the storms.

Harry can hear the grin. “Because I like it.”

Westley makes him agree to meet at a strange cafe because, in his words, if Harry likes the storms then he’s welcome to join. Harry’s worried the others won’t like him, but it’s not as if Harry has to travel with them to see storms. Westley just says it’s more efficient with the equipment Lillian has and the knowledge that Ahmed and Mark both possess. Harry gets to the cafe, hands tightening on his keys and wallet and phone in his pockets, rubbing his forefinger against the ragged edge of the nail on his thumb absently. He orders tea and sits down to wait, skimming periodically over the newspaper left on the table. It’s quaint, the walls are painted yellow and it’s lit up by bright, welcoming lights.

When they settle around him Harry feels his back straighten and his shoulders square themselves like he’s ready to take on the world. His body seems to be preparing for something Harry hadn’t been briefed on. He looks around the circle, meets two sets of piercing blue eyes, one pair of brown and green, respectively. Mark, the youngest and he looks it, with hollow cheeks and an underfed quality about him, offers a sharp nod through slitted eyes.

“Hello,” Harry says, and it’s as if someone more confident has taken over his body.

“So,” Westley says to the rest of the group, waving at Harry like he’s presenting a truly interesting mould culture. “Yay or nay?”

 

:::

 

They leave Nebraska two days later, Lillian following the converging patterns of at least three thunderstorms with a feverish light in her eyes that should concern Harry, perhaps, but really just sets him on fire. Her car is at the head of the pack and Harry watches bemusedly as Ahmed sits in the front, reading the complicated screen with a furrow in his brow as deep as a canyon as they pull out from the curb. Westley claps him on the shoulder in passing, grinning at him like he’s a child. Mark follows Westley sullenly into his bright red SUV.

“You ready?” Westley says, practically vibrating.

“Yes,” Harry says because he is. He’s ready for anything.

They drive for a long time and it’s not so different from all the days Harry spent wandering the country alone; except for the crackle of the walkie-talkie that sits on his dashboard with the occasional drawl update from Mark and the excited commentary on scenery from Westley. Neither Lillian or Ahmed contribute to the walkie-talkie chatter, and Harry just absorbs it.

Nebraska is mostly flat, with the occasional hill and pothole interrupting the regularly scheduled show of grass and sky meeting, out there way in the distance, at a single point. The road is a repetitive sight but Harry can never quite lose his white-knuckled grip on the wheel. He stays behind Westley’s red SUV best he can, getting seperated by a wayward lane-change once in awhile, but nothing that makes him pick up the walkie-talkie and ask for directions. He wonders if he’s going insane, but he swears the silver cut of the satellite atop Lillian’s car moves with purpose and grace and command, far more sure than any of the other cars on the freeway. They enter North Dakota and Westley’s voice, chipper and over-bright sounds on the static.

“Don’t plan on sleeping, newbie,” he says. “The storm sleeps for no-one.”

“Shut up,” Harry hears Mark snap in the background with no real heat. “Storms aren’t organisms.”

“Mr Biology,” Westley returns, “but you study the patterns of hurricanes.”

The click of the walkie-talkie going silent makes Harry remember his butterflies, how they’re largely solitary creatures minus migration and mating season. Fragile and beautiful things that don’t know that there’s anything bigger than them, their flight path and their eggs until there’s over three hundred thousand of them crossing the border into Mexico. Harry wonders what that’s like, no executive thought or ponderings, just his whole life boiled down to instinct and the reliability of flowers. He wonders if they understand that what they do every year is a phenomenon, beautiful and foreign and a novelty for humans that have forgotten who their Hamishs are and don't know where strange moments of vertigo take them to. Do butterflies look around when they’re flying and think _wow, look at what I'm doing!_  and do they experience an all-consuming appreciation for life, for the short few weeks of which they live it?But of course they don’t and they never will. Harry Hart was always a realist, etched into the very marrow of his bones.

He travels America in a Honda Civic, not three thousand miles across national borders; he wears a beat-up leather jacket and an eye-patch he doesn’t know how he got, instead of wings that weigh less than a tissue. Harry doesn't know what he's doing, riding the veins of a country that spends its life trying to circumvent distance, but maybe this is his instinct, the thing that weighs all humans down. The need for proof that they are not, in fact, indestructible. He feels like days, months of his life are being wasted in a car and he doesn’t know how to make it feel less like an inscrutable loss. Years of his life have disappeared down the drain and it’s hard not to grieve for it, hard not to feel bitter over losing more while he has enough control of his own life to stop it. He knows about the five stages and he wonders which one he's on now. 

But, the important thing is that he isn’t alone any more, and he knows that humans aren’t solitary creatures, not even the worst of them.

There were days at the beginning where he wanted to give up because that question _who are you?_ and the answer  _lepidopterist_ doesn't quite mesh.  That’s the thing they don’t tell you about Alzheimer's patients, about people with amnesia, that they’re not really  _people_ any more.  Harry walks and talks and functions, but he doesn’t have the essential parts of himself. Who are you without your past? Who are you without the shape of your hands banged out from decades of working? He’s nobody, and that realization still shakes him to the core even though it’s most definitely not the first time he’s thought it. He hasn’t got stories about his friends, he barely remembers school, but that’s not the amnesia. It’s a familiar distance in his memory, like the edges of a well-worn photograph, like a cousin twice removed. A polite air that means he’s grown old and he should have things to slot in between  _when I was in school_ and  _now I’m riding across America with a crack-team of stormchasers_ but there’s nothing.

But he hasn't given up, Harry presses on because there’s a tiny little bubble of something that lives in his chest, right above where his heart beats on, steady sure and keeping him alive. _That is hope_ , his shit memory tells him helpfully whenever he wonders at it. _That has always been there_. And Harry thinks that it’s his greatest secret, the one thing he’s never told anyone for fear of his dignity and pride being marred. He’s always hoping, living in hope, waking up every day living for the hope that while there are scumbags, humanity will go on and _do better._ He exists in this fragile space, that space spread out in his head and his body, the one that proves while he knows that life is life and nothing is ever truly perfect, he still hopes it will be. That’s why, he supposes, when the blankness if his own brain is unyielding, he still walks forward like he has purpose.

They drive through the night, tracking the convergence onto one of the far-flung farmlands that litter the flat peninsula of the state and they head straight for it.

“Scheduled, by my math, for dawn,” Lillian drawls over the walkie-talkies. “Mark, if you would like to double check…”

“Already done, looks spot on,” Mark says, and he sounds irritated.

“When’s dawn?” Westley asks idly, like he’s asking if anyone thinks doughnuts would shrink on the moon.

“Thirty minutes,” Lillian says. They’ll probably be there in fifteen with the breakneck speed they're pacing. Westley gets excited and presses on the accelerator, which forces everyone else to do the same or risk being left in the dust.

They park some ways away from where the storm clouds are gathering, a rush of wind so sharp and cold that it steals all of Harry’s breath when he steps out of his car to watch with interest while Ahmed sets up some equipment.

“He’s going to measure the strength of the wind and the amount of rainfall,” Mark says, sliding up to him, looking like a dog that’s chewed something he wasn’t supposed to. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” he looks at the ground darkly. “I need a break from Wes.”

“Of course,” Harry says, because he needs to get out of his own head.

When the sun doesn’t creep up over the horizon but the sky behind the blanket of ferocious clouds determinedly lights up like the sun wants to call morning upon earth with everything the sun has in it, and the storm rumbles like the low purr of a cat, Harry and Mark both climb back into the car. They sit in total silence, watching as the sky darkens in a total black-out. The first boom of thunder hits Harry’s body like it was a physical blow. He thinks he can feel the earth shudder and roll at the force of the sound, and Harry hears that Mark’s breathing has gone funny.

“Four,” comes the static-crackle of the walkie-talkie and it makes both of them jump. “Four storms,” Lillian says, and her voice is low and wondering.

“Hah,” Mark murmurs softly, smug about something. He cranes his long skinny neck to look up as a flash of lightning sparks above them, lighting up the parts of all the things they can’t see.

The rain cracks down and falls like a sheet, hitting the earth like each raindrop is a fist and the planet has to pay some divine reckoning for existing on that precious precipice: bearer of life and death, held in place by gravity and chance, a pure stroke of luck that lets Harry’s breath fog up the window for hours as the massive thunderstorm rages on.

Mark falls into a restless sleep hours later, and the storm keeps going. Harry sees how much the half-moons under his eyes look like purple splotches of paint. 

It’s such a visceral, physical wound-like thing that Harry wonders if those dark circles hurt him. His spine is curved uncomfortably and his back is facing the passenger door. He looks stupidly pale and young, so much like a boy right then that Harry has the rather absurd notion to wrap him up and protect him from the world. All that he does, in the end, is take off his jacket and drape it over Mark. He snuffles gratefully into the seat vinyl and curls tighter.

As dawn falls into morning creeps into afternoon and back into night, Harry starts to feel real exhaustion filling in the spaces where he’s sure his bones should be. Mark doesn’t stir, but when the walkie-talkie crackles Harry freezes.

“Uh, Lil,” Westley’s voice sounds tinny and sleepy. Harry snatches it up and dials down the volume, lifting it up to his ear. “Some of us are human, at least last time I checked. We need sleep.”

“Then go,” comes the irritated reply. It’s not Lillian, so the only other person it could possibly be is Ahmed. “Go to sleep. Lillian and I need this.”

“Fine,” Westley says, curt and cuts off.

Harry sees the lights on his car flare to life and hears the crunch of the gravel/dirt road as he makes a u-turn and passes Harry’s car back to town. Harry hesitates, torn between the sleeping boy next to him and the way his heart hasn’t stopped hammering since the storm started. Eventually, Mark makes a tiny sound in his sleep, it sounds pained, and Harry’s heart loses.

He helps Mark into the motel that he follows Westley to, getting soaked in the ten seconds it takes to make it from car to lobby. Mark’s still half-asleep and absolutely no help, but Harry doesn’t mind, propping up his slurry body and asking for two rooms.

The check-in guy gives them a sympathetic look. “Oh, man, I can’t believe you have to take care of your son.”

Harry just shrugs at the assumption and struggles down the hall.

He’s brushing his teeth, hair plastered to his skull from the rain when he remembers reading a file, a snatch of words on white paper.

_Son: Gary Unwin._

 

:::

 

It’s edging to the end of November when Mark looks at him through slitted eyes, sitting across from him in one of those horribly indie cafes the stormchasers seem to enjoy frequenting, like garish upholstery and acoustic guitar were part of the things Harry signed up for. Westley is sitting next to him, one arm thrown protectively over the back of Mark’s chair. (Westley and Mark, Mark and Westley is how Harry thinks of them privately. He knows Mark, Lillian and Ahmed do this as often as their schedules allow and Westley has tagged along for every single excursion. Lillian and Ahmed are married and share that silent synchronicity that all people do, when they’ve known each other long enough, so Mark and Westley had teamed up as a result.

Ahmed gets along with everyone, a tiny mild-mannered man whose only vice is his passion and everyone gets along with Westley, who is exuberant and friendly. It stands to reason that they’re friends, but leaves Harry wondering at why they’re so attached to people like Lillian and Mark. Lillian is bossy, stony-faced, with a chip on her shoulder bigger than the iceberg that sank the Titanic and she looks down her nose at everyone; Mark is tetchy and says things without thinking and isn’t extroverted in any way, yet here they are.

Maybe, Harry thinks, opposites really do attract.)

“Do you know what Thanksgiving is?” Mark asks, corner of his mouth lifting.

For a moment Harry is insulted, but he has to concede that most of his knowledge on this holiday begins and ends with turkey.

“I’ve always thought it was a bit contrived,” Harry sniffs. “Stuffing your gob two months in a row on the excuse that a holiday means feast.”

“So,” Mark says, and his eyes twinkle. “You do know what Thanksgiving is.”

Westley doesn’t look up from his newspaper. “You’re invited to Lillian and Ahmed’s room. Every year they cook an amazing feast and we remember why we’re so thankful we’re American.”

Harry looks at him, dubious. “I don’t know…” he hedges. He doesn’t need the weight.

“It’s kosher,” Westley continues, flipping a page. “In case you’re worried about it. Lillian makes sure. She’s Jewish.”

Mark shrugs. “It’s just tradition. We let you in our group.”

So Harry can’t refuse.

Three days later, Mark has a vice-like grip on Harry’s elbow as he steers him to Lillian and Ahmed’s room. Westley is on Harry’s other side, whistling absentmindedly and petting the wallpaper as they walk past. Harry sort of wants to escape, in that way that anyone fights the urge to escape when they’re being essentially frog marched.

“You know,” Westley says conversationally, like he doesn’t even notice the tiny struggle going on next to him. “I’m really good at my job. Always have been. I hated school so much, and all that it made me want was to make it better for kids. I think it’s the ADHD, I understand kids who hate school.”

“Still doesn’t explain why your job description is so boring,” says Mark in the tone of someone who has definitely said these things before and will say these things again. “You’re an adrenaline junkie. You make your living from consulting on the state of a child’s education.”

“That’s my whole dating profile blurb,” Westley leans toward Harry, like it’s a secret. “It says: ‘it confuses my friend Mark that I have a fun hobby and also a respectable job at the same time’. It makes me look smart.”

“You want to look smart?” Mark lets go of Harry to tap on room 213. “Change your profile photo.”

Westley makes a wounded noise when Lillian throws open the door to her room and grins at them, shark-like.

“There you are. I can hear you bickering from the other end of the hallway, you know.”

“It’s not bickering,” Westley says sulkily. He lifts his head from his mock-pout moments later, sniffing in delight. “Oh, my dear, did you make my favourite?” He slides past Lillian and into the room, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a toddler told he could have a cookie.

Mark rolls his eyes and follows him in. Harry’s trapped in the hallway by Lillian’s gaze and he feels his stance widen, his spine straighten. His hands fall to his sides, lose but ready to curl into a fist. That’s what he knows, that sometimes his body remembers that it knows how to fight and Harry doesn’t know the last fight he even got into. There’s something about Lillian and Mark and this look that they occasionally level at him, one like they know all his secrets that makes him wary and jumpy near them (“Seriously, Harry,” Westley had said once when they were sitting in a Starbucks. “It’s like he’s got creepy mind-control powers. He asks an insensitive question,” here he waves his hand in a gesture that means _like he does, you know_ , “and naturally you close up, but he just, like, looks at you and suddenly you’re spilling your guts out in the middle of a chase at five a.m.”

“And what do your guts look like?” Harry had asked, wry. Westley had set his mouth in an unconvincing parody of closed-off.

“That’s for Mark to know. You’ll figure it out, he rides with you sometimes, he’ll try it, I swear.”)

“You keep kosher?” is all she asks, in the end.

“I’m not Jewish,” Harry replies, still ready for a punch to be thrown.

Lillian shrugs then, drifting from the doorway and into the room. She leaves it open for Harry and he shuffles in quickly, kicking the door shut so none of the neighbors will be too disturbed. He still gets a vindictive rush out of kicking things shut, because his mother and his maids abhorred over it, and what fully-functioning adult doesn’t feel a little bit of glee whenever they do something they weren’t allowed to as a child? He toes off his shoes at the entry though, because while he may be rapscallion and a rebel, he’s not an _animal._ The room is warm and there’s a movie flickering on the T.V., one that has Ahmed wholly absorbed and Mark propped on his shoulder against the wall, watching it with the half-attentiveness someone gives something else when they know it well. The other half, Harry knows without examining the room too hard, is solely reserved for Westley, in case he says something Mark can start a fight over. Or something.

It does, indeed, smell amazing, and Harry watches with some bemusement as Westley immediately sets to assisting Lillian in the kitchen. They work around each other with the long practised ease of people that have known each other for just too long, so Harry can’t really be faulted when he blurts out, “how long have you known each other?”

Lillian doesn’t even look up from where she’s stirring. “Since freshman year, college. Dinner’s in an hour. Make sure Mark isn’t ruining the ending for Ahmed, would you?”

They eat dinner sitting in front of the T.V. when they eat, alternating between watching Mark and Westley bicker and watching Davy Crockett. Mark and Lillian make a game out of who can point out the most historical or cultural inconsistencies, which Harry and Westley joyfully ignore and Ahmed seems too baffled to join in. The food is good and sitting in his socks and his jacket on the floor of a dirty motel room, Harry feels warm for the first time since he woke up.

 

:::

 

So November becomes December and South Dakota becomes North Dakota, which becomes Montana and then Wyoming. Harry has so far escaped any terrifying interrogations that Westley prophesizes are in his imminent future every chance he gets, so he’s optimistic.

There’s an impressive dust storm travelling their way and they’re on the path to meet it. Harry’s concentrating on the road, following Westley’s red streak best he can, Mark lazily reading a pamphlet beside him. He’s sitting in the most ludicrous position, Harry dislikes it not only because his feet are propped up on the seat, but also because this is a car and the size of the cab assures you are intimately acquainted with your passenger. His elbows are askew and his head is drooped in the crook of his elbow.

“I do it because I’m smart,” he offers with no preamble. “I like being right,” he elaborates. “Everything has a formula. I’m good at math and nature is math in all the ways that count.”

Harry doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know if he wants to.

“My parents raised me in tornado alley. I witnessed destruction so much as a child,” Mark continues blithely, like trauma isn’t a big deal. “They followed it, I guess, because I spent a lot of time in cellars, or basement shelters, because the tornado was big enough to raze towns. I saw after, though. That was the important part. Sometimes people didn’t see afterwards, and I don’t know if I’m the lucky one.”

“You want a way to get ahead of it,” Harry says flatly. “To protect people.”

Mark uncurls and Harry can see his flat eyes looking at him. His mouth is twisted into an odd shape, but Harry won’t look at him directly. Traffic is slowing and Harry slows with it.

“Yes,” Mark says. “And no. I want a way to _stop_ it.”

Harry does look at him then, the sharp determination on his features, the stubborn set of his mouth. His shoulders are hunched in defensiveness and Harry is struck, so suddenly, it’s hard for him to breathe. Mark never really reminded Harry of Gary Unwin except for that first night, when he fell asleep. All children are alike in their vulnerable moments, he learned that from someone. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knows that neither Mark nor Gary Unwin are truly children, he just can’t help but think of them that way. He remembers Gary now, but he doesn’t know where from, a small blond boy with a kamikaze smile, someone that Harry cared for immensely. Mark isn’t Gary, but that doesn’t mean Harry doesn’t care.

Mark’s looking at him, patient and curious and Harry’s hands clench on the wheel.

“I need to chase,” is all he offers.

Mark’s mouth thins. Harry knows it’s unsatisfying and unfair, but he doesn’t have the words. The ones he does have, however, are unconvincing and outrageous. _I’m chasing these storms because I’ve recently had a bullet in my brain and I can’t remember who I was. And I’ve lost my eye. Clearly._ Little scraps of feelings come back to him in the rain, the wind, little pangs that echo what he must’ve been feeling during something, some time, some memory buried deep in his subconscious. He doesn’t know why the rain helps, he read it once, something about the release of endorphins and maybe if he can get his brain to feel _happy_ then maybe he can coax out his memory.

Mark looks, for all the world, like he already knows everything about Harry.

“The rain,” he says, eventually. “I don’t know why, but I feel better in it.”

Mark nods, eyes slitting as he pulls himself into another strange pretzel position to think.

“The west coast,” he says. “Or Florida. There’s a lot of rain in Washington, they get storms in late summer and early winter.” He makes a dismissive gesture out the window. “It’s less twisters and hurricanes out there. Except for Florida, which is a total fucking weather hodge-podge and doesn’t deserve to be populated by normal, kind people.”

Harry tries not to let his fingers on the wheel slide. He is not a normal, kind people.

 

:::

 

“Okay,” Westley announces over their Starbucks breakfast of too-sweet pastries and, honestly, sub-par coffee. His eyes are narrowed shrewdly and he gestures between Mark and Harry with a stir stick. Lillian and Ahmed usually skip breakfasts and coffee breaks, which Harry understands and is silently thankful for, because Lilian-Mark fights are nasty and Harry just genuinely doesn’t enjoy coffee enough to put up with squabbling. “Don’t think that I didn’t notice that you sat on the same side of the table so you wouldn’t have to look at each other.”

“Oh, yes,” Mark says dryly, rolling his eyes, “because everything, down to the seating placement, is some psychological complication that just needs your analysis.”

“Thank you,” Westley says indulgently.

“No, really, shut up,” Mark warns.

“I was just wondering. Who spilt who’s guts to whom? Maybe I’m just a weak man, but I think a good sob story really sets the mood for, like, those shitty romantic movies. You know, the ones that have Channing Tatum and some girl with black hair and blue eyes dancing in the rain.” Westley picks up a brownie and takes a tiny, neat bite out of it, dusting crumbs off the table methodically, absently.

“I’m pretty sure they didn’t dance in the rain in Step Up,” Mark says, then his eyes sharpen. “Did you just imply I’ve tried to seduce both you and Harry by trying to get to know you better?”

Westley shrugs, helpless, and looks to Harry for help.

“Look,” he says, cutting in swiftly because he does actually like Westley. “I don’t have a tragic backstory, or whatever, I’m just here because it’s better than what I’ve been doing lately.”

They both fall silent at that, absorbing it. Harry’s irritation dissolves instantly, because they've both got little creases in the space between their eyebrows, like they care so much about him. He smiles, sure as light, and he can look Mark in the eye again.

“What’s Step Up?” he asks, feeling reckless.

" _'What's Step Up'_?" Westley roars, and Mark laughs a loud, bone-deep kind of laugh.

 

:::

 

January comes, then so does February. 

Harry had known this was coming, but it’s still a bit of a shock to the system to know that by the end of the month they’re going to split up, Mark and Ahmed back to Harvard or Boston or wherever they come from, Westley back to his office in Manhattan, Lillian back to her regular weather-monitoring job -- or, actually, maybe she does stay in the field full-time. Harry knows exactly three things about her. One: she’s long and coltish, two: she’s Jewish and three: she’s got long stringy blonde hair. But it’s strange, these people he’s spent months of his life with, he’s just going to give them up so they can get back to essays and serious phone calls.

So he looks it up on the Internet and tries to find someone willing to take cash as a downpayment for rent. He’s going to have to get a job, he registers, because he can’t honestly rely on that creepy little black card that those Kentucky people had given him, no matter what the last seven months tell him.

He gets a message, just one, about one of the inquiries he'd posted about housing and Harry barely thinks about it before typing back  _yes_ and hitting send.

They don’t actually do much chasing for the last weeks they’re together. Instead, they shamelessly monopolize each other’s space and time, lounging in the motel rooms and doing so little by the way of productiveness it’s probably obscene -- because Westley still works. He’s always working, even when they’re out, answering the phone and talking in low tones for hours. Mark hates it because Westley goes all serious and sharp eyes, like he’s forgotten everything else in the world but that phone call. They watch him as he lays on the floor, usually tangled with Lillian and Mark as he talks to the ceiling, phone pressed tight to his ear. They only hear the one side of it and they don’t actually care enough about the American education system to really comment on it, but still.

Every time his phone jingles their heads all swivel to him, Pavlovian. It’s usually dead silent up until that point and Westley has to long-sufferingly get either Lillian or Mark to budge so he can reach his phone while they all stare at him in open wonder as he talks.

They actually go out to a bar one of the last nights and Westley hangs back to walk with Harry, while Ahmed cheerfully attempts to referee an argument between Lillian and Mark on eighteenth-century farmlands, which neither of them knows anything about. He’s dressed like he always is, which is to say, like a university-aged highschool teacher. The weather is just right for his jumper, but it’s probably still too cold for the skinny jeans he chooses to wear. Westley catches Harry eyeing him disapprovingly and he laughs.

“Relax, if I get cold I’ll just borrow Mark’s scarf.”

Harry shakes his head. “Are you ever going to do anything about that?”

Westley, feigning lighthearted obliviousness, says, “Do anything about what, now?”

At Harry’s cutting look, his face crumples. “Okay,” he says. “I admit, there is a tiny problem with the whole me doing anything plan. Mark has a boyfriend,” and Westley spreads his hands in that universal _what-can-you-do_ gesture that Harry hates. “But, actually, I came over here to find out why _you_ look so starry-eyed and wistful around Mark, not to discuss my own shortcomings because, really, I already know all of those.”

“You don’t have shortcomings,” Harry says immediately, which earns him nothing but a raised eyebrow. “You don’t, you’re a very wonderful young man,” which makes Westley duck his head, bashful, glasses glinting from the light of the street posts. “And Mark does not have a boyfriend.”

“Okay, off topic,” Westley says, and Harry sets his mouth in a stubborn line. This is familiar, that tingle of _we’ll talk about this later._ So, he pulls out his camera and snaps a picture of Westley looking down the sidewalk longingly. Mark isn’t in the shot, but Harry sees the arch of his shoulders and the glow of his blue scarf when he turns his head to look himself. Westley’s head whips around to scowl at Harry, but they’ve never commented on the camera habit before and he doesn’t now. Harry is pathetically grateful.

“What was the topic again?” Harry asks, distracted by the passing cars. They’re falling behind a considerable amount, so Harry starts to walk rather than meander and Westley doesn’t really get the memo because he still trots along like he’s got all the time in the world.

“You don’t do it much, but you get all,” he flaps his hands spastically, “weird whenever he says something very naive and idealistic, or when he’s half-asleep.”

Harry rounds his shoulders against the wind, like he can block out the sharp stab of pain that comes along with the thought of Gary Unwin, because Harry knows, instinctively, his amnesia means that Harry’s lost him. For the shortest amount of time, Harry had become irrevocably attached to the kid despite his best efforts and, also against his best efforts and internal compass, had accidentally acted fatherly towards him on many accounts. Which, hmm.

“He reminds me of someone, sometimes,” Harry says, and he knows his voice goes fond. “A son.”

“Your son?”

“It’s complicated,” Harry answers, shrugging, because he’s not actually entirely clear on that detail. “Oh, look, we’re here,” he says and picks up the pace so he can duck into the bar after Lillian, leaving Westley and his questions out on the cold sidewalk. It’s warm in the bar, patrons and music competing for the title of ‘most obnoxious’ but the booth he slides into is nice and he even offers a smile to a red-nosed Lillian.

It’s like any old bar, made up of wood and overhead speakers and waitresses with tops cut too low. The walls are a faded, dirty grey which makes Harry suspect they might’ve once been white. Trophies, photos, medals, posters and bizarrely, one plaque with a giant mummified gecko mounted on it, are tacked to the walls. There’s a haze around the room that suggests steam, probably from the way the door opens and closes every ten seconds and the breathing of the guests. The seats are red vinyl and squishy and they feel much nicer than motel chairs or car seats.

“You didn’t lose Westley, did you?” Mark’s sharp voice makes Harry’s gaze cut to him instantly.

Westley slides into the booth right then, pressing his side all up against Harry because the booth is meant to seat three people, if that, and smiles, just for Mark.

“Speak of the devil and he shall come,” Harry says knowledgeably to Mark.

“Oh, am I Satan in this situation? That’s usually reserved for Lillian, I thought,” Westley says in that tone that suggests he knows exactly what he's doing, overly casual and glancing down at his cuticles.

Harry scowls at the ensuing argument, and Westley grins like the Cheshire cat.

 

:::

 

 

He takes Mark’s advice and moves out to the northwest. He doesn’t know why, but the promise of rain and that little thing living in his chest prod at him, poking and saying _that’s where you go, that’s the natural course of things_ like a compass pointing true North. Ahmed and Lillian are awake early enough to see him go, looping arms around his waist and pressing their noses into either side of his neck. He squeezes them tight for a second, holding on, reluctant to let go.

It’s not quite dawn and not quite morning, that hazy blue-tinted time in between 5:59 A.M. and 6:00 A.M., and Ahmed helps Harry put his one suitcase into the trunk of his car. His memories, tiny and bare, like the brush of fingertips on his skin, have started to filter back, like a breath of air in the winter. A feeling, then gone. Lillian raises her chin at him, and her eyes glitter, hopeless. She whispers, “Give us a call, yeah?” and Harry nods, struck dumb by the show of affection. He gets in his car with its well-worn tires, points the headlights toward the Pacific, and drives.

He takes the I-94 West because his GPS implores him after three wrong turns, saying that it programs the fastest route, and it’ll be one whole day before he gets there. Non-stop.

And because he is mortal, Harry gets there in two days.

His landlord insists they meet at a locally-owned and locally-stocked grocery store and in the growing darkness outside, the fluorescent lights make everything look murky green, harsh and menacing. He’s in Ocean Shores, population 5,800, right on the tip of the state, a straight jut into the ocean, like an elbow askew. When he climbs out of his car and he stands in the car park, he can taste the salt in the air he breathes. He stretches out his joints, moving gratefully in circles around the car until a bog man ambles up to him, half-grin on his face, hand stuck in front of him for a shake.

“Lenny,” he says, “and you must be Harry.”

Harry takes his hand and smiles back, any stand-offishness he might’ve possessed previously worn away by months of enduring Westley’s obliviously friendly attempts at socializing Harry. “I am,” he agrees. He sticks his hands into his pockets, sliding his palm along the soft leather of his wallet.

Lenny taps the left side of his head with his finger. “Eyepatch gave it away, like you said.”

Lenny takes the cash and shows him to the tiny house, right by the intersection of Ocean Shores Boulevard and Butterclam Street, which is close enough to the beach that he smiles to himself happily, and far enough away from most of the neighbours that he feels a sense of relief.

“Originally, my gran wanted to make it a vacation home, but we figured it was too small for our growing family when my wife and I inherited it,” Lenny says conversationally, standing around on the porch of the tiny house. The sky is darkening more and more, the wind picking up and howling against the crashing of the waves. “So we decided to rent out, you know,” he hands the key over to Harry. The metal is still warm from Lenny’s hand, the edges bite into Harry’s skin when he presses it hard against his palm, trying to make his heartbeat realize that this is happening, this is really happening. He’s found a place and he can stay there. “Have someone use it while we can’t. How long do you think you’ll stay?”

Harry shrugs. “As long as you let me. Until I’m better.”

Lenny’s smile goes sad and crooked. “Well,” he says, giving Harry a solemn pat on the shoulder. “I’ll let you settle in. Just message me if it turns out you need any tips on living out here.”

Harry smiles back. “Thank you. Really.”

Lenny shrugs his big shoulders, smiling big enough to split his face. “Ah, no trouble, really, it’s a pleasure, to give what I can to make someone else happy.”

 

:::

 

March in Washington isn’t really spring as much as it is mud. Harry spends half of his life soaked, the other half holed up in a bookstore called Read It! with the owner, Marilyn, who is in her mid-thirties with three cats who live with her in the apartment above the store. He gets a job there, sorting books and cashiering when Marilyn is otherwise predisposed. Read It! is quaint, rather larger on the inside than it looks on the out, and with a soft maroon red carpet on the ground floor. There are dozens of shelves with books crammed in, so abundant some spill out of the aisles and decorate the floor, settling in precarious piles created by both employees and customers alike.

Harry loves Read It!, loves the way it smells like old lady perfume and old record player in the corner that croons out Billie Holiday and the way the front windows fog in the rain. Only one of Marilyn’s cats is allowed in the store, a brown cat with sapphire blue eyes. (“Oh,” Harry had said, delighted, on the first day he came to work. “Does he have a name?”

“We call him Oscar,” she’d said absently. “Just check off the book on the chart,” she handed him a clipboard with tick boxes and book titles on it. He’d looked at it for a beat before looked back to the cat, who stared at him blankly. Oscar slow-blinked in that way that cats do, like he was penetrating through layers and layers of reality with his gaze alone.

Unsettled, Harry had looked to Marilyn, but she already was breezing up the steps to the second floor.) He mostly spends his time by the coffee maker, lazily meowing at customers who make a cup and stretching out, inviting pets. He’s mellow -- but vocal -- and he meows along to Billie on occasion, which Harry finds hilarious.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, Marilyn greets him behind the counter. She presses her hands flat on the counter, leaning forward toward him, strands of hair falling into her eyes, grin bright and charming. Harry mirrors her posture, smiling back. She’s got black hair and sharp brown eyes, she reminds him a bit of Westley, and he’s become ridiculously fond of her in just two short weeks.

“Where’s your green?” she asks him. Harry looks down at himself, blinking.

“Uh,” he says intelligently. “I’ve got green underwear?”

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Can’t see it, doesn’t count,” Marilyn reaches over and pinches his cheek very softly. Then, she takes off the green mardi gras beads from her neck and, with an affected air of ceremony, drapes them across his neck. He reaches up and runs his fingers along the four leaf clover dangling from it.

“I remembered more things today,” he tells her absently, edging around the counter and crouching over one of the boxes, starting to sift through the novels.

“That’s great, Harry,” Marilyn says, jumping up to sit on the counter. She watches him read the spines of the novels. “What was it?”

“More about the army,” he sets down _A Wrinkle in Time_ and looks up at Marilyn. “Not very interesting, really. Except there was… there was someone,” he says and he wonders what about his expression makes her eyebrows shoot up.

“Someone? Like, _someone,_ someone?”

“What.” he rocks back on his heels to squint at the decorations she’s hung from the ceilings. Various green leprechauns and animals stare at him with their baleful paper eyes. “Oh, God, no, Marilyn,” he scowls at her. “No. He’s just… okay. I wanted it to be " _someone",_ but it was the army and then this happened. I’m not even sure if I remember him right.”

She waves her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you remember everything perfectly. Feelings are feelings.”

Harry’s not sure why he’d told her the truth, just that he had. It seemed like the thing to do, when he started spending all his time in Read It! and because his house is big when it’s just him and his snatches of past filtering in. He likes telling her about the things he’s remembered, tiny details that seem insignificant to anyone else. The bushes in his childhood home had roses, he liked dogs, Hamish used to bandage him up when they were at school. Marilyn likes being told these, she listens with a reverence and attentiveness that soothes him.

“Very nice,” he tells her. “Thanks for the life lesson.”

She squints at him. “It’s Hamish, isn’t it? Didn’t he follow you from school into the army?”

Harry shrugs because he doesn’t really know who followed who, just that he’s always been by Harry’s side, and the more he remembers that, the weirder he feels about being so far from London. Marilyn, though, she’s a good friend. Westley still calls him, spends hours on the phone just chattering away while Harry leaves him on speaker she he can read. It’s not so different from when they were in the field together.

When March becomes April, Harry gives in to Westley’s incessant badgering and Marilyn’s silent judgement and takes her to shop for a laptop. Harry doesn’t know which one is best, just sticks his hands in his pockets and trails behind her while she asks the Radioshack guy increasingly specific questions about the make and model of each one he presents to them. He remembers most of his life after school, six years in the military, two after it in which he hadn’t done much except sit on Hamish’s couch. And still.

Whenever he’s not at Read It! he’s at home, alone, reading books or watching movies. He cooks for himself now, more than he used to, following directions carefully dicated from Westley over the phone. He’s learnt pancakes, homemade lasagna, and pretended mortal offence when Westley had attempted to direct him in making scrambled eggs because, honestly, he’s not _pedestrian._ She insists on a sleek silver dell and Harry accepts it without a word, smiling at her. He takes it home and stumbles through the set-up, at which Mark’s laugh crackles over the phone the entire time.

“I thought you said you’d help,” Harry grouches and Mark laughs harder.

“Sorry, sorry, man. I know, I am, I’m helping.”

Mark directs him through Skype and stays on call when he rings Westley. 

He’s smiling already when he picks up, glasses pushed onto his forehead, grey shirt dishevelled and twisted on his body. He’s got stubble on his chin and an exhausted sheen to his eyes.

“Did you just wake up?” Harry asks suspiciously.

“What, no,” Westley says.

“Isn’t it six P.M. over there?”

“I’ve been up for hours, Hazza, don’t fret,” Westley says.

Mark’s suspiciously quiet, so Harry makes up an excuse and retreats into the kitchen with his phone.

“Mark?” Harry asks, concerned.

“I haven’t talked to him since we broke up,” Mark says quietly. “We don’t usually talk, we’re only apart for three months.”

Harry breathes into the ensuing pause, wondering what on earth Mark’s thinking. They’ve been doing this for years, a ritual that Harry’s sure they’ve perfected by now. He wonders if Lillian and Ahmed mind about the separation. Lillian and Westley have been friends since freshman year at Columbia and Harry knows they spent all of those years together, Westley even introduced Lillian and Ahmed; a story which Westley told with great relish and to Lillian’s immense embarrassment.

“What does he look like?” Mark asks, hesitant and he sounds vulnerable, right then, like a twenty-two year old with a crush.

“Tired,” Harry answers instantly. “Why don’t you just talk to him?”

The line goes dead. It takes Harry about five minutes to figure out that Mark has hung up and when he does, he sighs out into his empty kitchen with dire resignation. He wanders back to Westley, who launches into a story about his sisters when he was a child. Harry settles into his couch with the crossword and listens.

 

:::

 

Harry’s standing on the beach during one of the anomalous hot May afternoons, letting the waves wash over his toes. Washington beaches are rocky and precarious to walk on, but Harry has found a mostly soft spot where he stands and merely watches the horizon. The sun is baking the sand and Harry’s exposed nose and cheekbones. Sweat is gathering in the dip of his throat and shoulder and he feels so at peace. It’s something he hasn’t felt in a long time, even before the injury. His eye still itches sometimes, which is disturbing and something he’s not quite sure how to deal with. Sometimes he forgets. Sometimes he blinks and he reaches up to move whatever’s blocking his sight before he remembers, oh yeah, can’t use that any more.

The ocean breeze feels nice against his sore arms. He’d cleaned out the house, started to move in more furniture, attempting, vaguely, to make it look like someone lives there. Since he’s started to work at Read It! his butterfly books have increased tenfold, as well as his pinup butterfly collection, from which he purchases from a strange thrift shop a block away from the bookstore.

He hasn’t spoken to any of his neighbours, a blessing that he’s grateful for to a probably worrying extent. But he feels alone, somehow, no matter how content and at ease he feels. Maybe he should get a dog.

Around hour five, when Harry’s feet have gone past numb and his knees have started to hurt, Harry decides to head back to the house, taking a meandering path through the sand. Little grains wedge themselves under his toenails and Harry scrapes his feet off against the grass before he opens the back door and heads straight to the kitchen. It’s his most comfortable room in the house, with big windows and soft white lighting that give the impression of a much more open space. The stains from past meals -- some even from the family before him -- and the plates and dishes Harry leaves out make it look like there’s more than one person here.

He pours himself a glass of orange juice and leans against the granite island, watching the seagulls that sit in the yard outside as he sips. They hop around the grass, nosing for worms or scraps of garbage. The tiny plot of land might work for a garden, Harry reflects, and it would attract butterflies if he got the right plants.

Lenny stops by, occasionally, but no one else has ever come to his house, which is why Harry jumps when he hears the knocking on the door. Something in him prickles, and he heads toward the front slowly, shoulders tight, spine curved. He’s holding the glass, still, he realizes when he reaches the door. The silhouette he glimpses through the windows on either side of the door doesn’t seem imposing, except maybe in height, and Harry has to wonder if this is some sort of belated welcome-to-the-neighbourhood schtick. Scowling, and armed with orange juice, Harry opens the door.

“Harry?” Hamish says.

And Harry’s heart sort of does three backflips and promptly lands him in cardiac arrest. His hand does something funny against the doorknob that lets it slip through his fingers and bang against the wall, every word he’s ever learnt at school has exited his brain and his body has forgotten how to function. Dimly, he registers through the roaring in his ears, that Hamish looks older, more gaunt, eyes shadowed with loss Harry hadn’t previously seen.

“Hello,” Harry manages, strangled, after three beats of total silence.

He lets Hamish into the house, of course he does, and hangs back self-consciously, watching Hamish’s face with rapt interest as he takes in Harry’s home. He watches as Hamish’s eyes flit over the newspapers, the butterflies, and land on the Dell computer, which Harry had left open last night, set into hibernation mode. Something like disgust flits over his features at the computer and Harry feels his face tug on a worn, familiar half-smile. Hamish sits on the couch, perching on the edge like he’s ready to flee at the slightest disturbance.

Hurriedly, Harry goes back to the kitchen to put his orange juice down the sink, sticking the glass into the dishwasher. When Harry looks up, Hamish is standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression.

“They said you don’t remember,”

Harry shrugs. “I remember you.”

It’s like a floodgate breaks in Hamish. He crosses the kitchen in four strides, purposeful. Harry catches something in his eyes as he crowds Harry against the sink, pressing their bodies flush. His hands grip Harry’s waist, sliding up to press the heels of his palms against the jut of Harry’s ribs and sliding up to his jaw and carding through his hair. Hamish closes his eyes and breathes out like he was holding it in, his last sigh into the world. Harry watches his face, looking for something to react to. Belatedly, Harry realizes he could react to  _this_ but then Hamish might stop.

His fingers curl tightly in Harry’s hair, like he’s trying to ground himself to Harry. It's incredibly hot, just those points of contact, the press of Hamish’s forehead against his own.

“I can’t believe I found you,” and he sounds so reverent that Harry gasps.

He feels fragile in Hamish’s hands, like he could be crushed in the next four seconds, whatever happens. There’s something thick in the air here, something that was there in school, the army, then even after that. Hamish is, without a doubt, Harry’s very best friend and it’s strange to be touched by a best friend like this, like Hamish owns him.

It doesn’t occur to Harry that they’re going to kiss until Hamish is tilting his mouth up, a clear invitation, and Harry can only think _of course_ and slide his hands to Hamish’s waist and hold on for dear life. Kissing has always seemed intimate to Harry, the most personal of actions, too much of a question without an answer unless the other person says yes. Hamish kisses him hard, kissing Harry like he needs a reminder, and Harry goes with it. It’s possessive, just teetering on the edge of painful and Harry feels like he’s been swept away in a gust of wind, helpless and wanting.

Hamish pulls back and looks at Harry, flushed and dazed. His pupils are blown wide behind his glasses, mouth wet and open and Harry looks at it, looks at it like he has a thousand times before, a million lives they’ve lived together. Hamish kisses him again, and again, and again, taking and taking and wanting.

“Sorry,” Hamish says, pulling away. He tucks his hands into his neatly tailored pants and tries to not be embarrassed. Harry looks at him, leaning against the sink, breathing slightly laboured and gathering the shreds of any dignity he thought he had.

“Tea?” Harry asks.

 

:::

 

Harry makes tea, sits Hamish down on the soft red couch in the living room and tells him the whole story. To his credit, Hamish nods in all the right places and smiles at some, but he doesn’t touch his tea once. He sits quietly when Harry’s finished, eyes flicking over the room again, cataloguing details. He looks at the photos that Harry’s tacked up, connected with soft white yarn, sort’ve like he’s trying to solve a conspiracy about himself. The pictures are mostly of seemingly insignificant locations, the open bathroom door with a clear shot of the toilet from his motel room, tiny birds resting on a green painted park bench, a row of parked cars on a snowy street.

Westley’s profile is a dark shape against the deep blue of the night, the longing expression on his face lit up by the orange glow of the streetlamp. Hamish fixates on that one, stands up and drifts over to the wall. Harry watches him brush his fingers over the edges of the photo. He doesn’t say a word for a long time, just looks at the long haphazard map of Harry’s memories, lifts his mug to his mouth and takes a long sip.

“These are beautiful, Harry. You could sell postcards with these,” the corners of his mouth lifts. “Or start a photo diary. People do that now,” he turns to face Harry.

He feels like he’s twenty again, like he’s back in the army barracks with Hamish looking at him, admonishing him for getting baited into another fight. History stretches in the space between them, heavy and vivid. Hamish takes a step toward him, and Harry gets the sudden flash of knowledge that Hamish is always the one crossing the space between them. Circumventing distance.

Hamish sets his mug down on the coffee table on his way to Harry, leaning against the doorway to the sitting room, shoulder propped up against the solid door frame.

Harry thinks a thousand words for all the things he doesn’t want, lacks the vocabulary to articulate the things he does want.

Hamish stays and Harry doesn’t ask him to leave. He gets home from Read It! at night and finds Hamish sitting on the couch by the door, doing something incomprehensible on a sleek laptop. Most nights it’s Hamish that cooks, but sometimes Harry gets the urge to cook, his hands know their way around before Harry does. Hamish looks sad when Harry puts the pasta in front of him, eyes going distant in a way Harry’s not sure he’s ever seen before.

“Alright?”

“Fine,” Hamish says. “Thank you.”

On the first of June, Lenny shows up in the early morning. Harry answers the door, half-asleep and in his boxers. Harry has the very real feeling that back-in-London Harry would never do such a thing but right now he’s just-got-shot-in-the-eye Harry and he doesn’t give a shit. Hamish slides up behind Harry, drops a hand to Harry’s waist on automatic, tucks the tips of his fingers into the waistband of Harry’s boxers.

“Hello,” Harry says, offering a smile.

“Hi,” Lenny says, eyes cutting between Harry and Hamish. He looks embarrassed, vaguely, in that way people do when they weren’t expecting something.

“Oh,” Harry says. “This is my friend, Hamish. I’ll get the rent money.”

 

:::

 

Westley calls him on Friday, and Harry answers it even though he’s in the middle of stirring sauce. The rest of the kitchen is splattered with clumps of flour and bags of vegetables, and Harry reflects that he’s probably a very messy cook.

“Hi,” Westley says, waving to the camera. He frowns at the mess. “Is it a bad time?”

“I can talk and cook, I’m not invalid, Westley,” Harry tells him.

“Yes, but… well, okay. Mark called me,” he sounds confused. “I don’t know why. We talked for three hours. Should that be weird? It feels weird.”

Harry sets the oven on low, letting the sauce simmer. He turns his attention to the tomatoes, searching for the cutting board and a knife. He hums absentmindedly as Westley talks about Mark, on and on and on. If Harry tunes Westley out he can hear the slide of paper as Hamish works on something in the sitting room.

Westley sighs. “Well? What about you? You’ve been secretive, think you’ve found someone?”

Harry abandons his tomatoes, slides across the kitchen to lean against the doorframe where he gets perfect access to the whole sitting room. Hamish is writing something, alternating between his laptop and the paper, brow furrowed in concentration.

“Maybe,” Harry admits. “I think so.”

He spends the rest of the week at Read It! and comes home to find Hamish either half-asleep on the couch or cooking for both of them. It’s eerily reminiscent of the year they spent after the army, except Hamish was the one pretending to function and Harry was busy pretending that he wasn’t having a tiny crisis. Their friendship had survived that. Harry doesn’t think it’ll survive this.

They haven’t mentioned the kiss, not even in a casual “Hey remember the first day you showed up on my doorstep and I let you kiss me and it was desperate and almost ten years of waiting for you has been built up in me and it showed? Haha. Yeah.” way. But the air between them feels heavy. Not bad, but a promise. Maybe that’s always been there.

He gets home on one of those June nights where the sky’s gone clear and the stars are out, the air is cool against Harry’s skin and his eyepatch isn’t bothering him, not like usual. His hands feel creaky and overused, his muscles pleasantly stretched out. He likes stock days, he can unload books for hours. Marilyn made some weird radish shaped earrings out of clay, she’d been showing them to customers all day. She’d made an extra charm for him, too. She’s stuck it on a silver chain and draped it across his neck where it bounces now, right over one of the shirts Westley got him from Nebraska.

Before he can get the keys in the lock, his door is being thrown open with a violence that temporarily disarms him. Taking a step back, Harry gathers himself, opens his mouth to say something, and Harry’s looking down at a blond boy with bright blue eyes.

“Gary,” he says blankly. Blinks to himself. Tries again, and this time what comes out is, “Eggsy.”

Eggsy takes a step forward, then another, then Eggsy hugs him, knocks the breath out of Harry in its fierceness. Slowly, almost afraid of his own body, Harry wraps his arm around Eggsy’s back, rests his chin on Eggsy’s head.

“You made me save the world without you,” Eggsy mumbles into Harry’s coat. “Twice.”

“Well, I’m very sorry about that, but I was a bit busy being shot in the head.”

Eggsy pulls away to laugh at him. He smiles.

:::

 

Eggsy gets a motel for the nights and lays on Harry’s couch during the days, nattering on and on about Roxy (Harry doesn’t remember her) and his girlfriend (Harry’s never met her; that they assure him of) and his dog. Harry remembers the dog and then, standing in the doorway, looking down at Eggsy’s sprawled frame, remembers the last things they ever said to each other.

“You’re incapable of taking orders,” Harry says, interrupting whatever Eggsy was saying. “It’s atrocious. You need to learn respect, and this chip on your shoulder -- it’s not attractive. Your authority issues and your moral compass do not coincide. This is a job, Eggsy, not a carnival or a barroom brawl.”

Speechless for a moment, Eggsy just blinks up at him, half-way startled into getting off the couch from Harry’s tone alone. Then his face splits into a grin wider than the Grand Canyon and he flops back down, tucking his arms behind his head.

“My chip _has_ helped me save the world, innit?”

Harry rolls his eyes and sighs a lot, setting down the basket at his him on the armrest of the sofa and starting to fold the laundry. He has a sneaking suspicion that the kid is beyond help. He has another suspicion it won’t even matter, that he’ll try to help anyways.

“Are you coming back?” Eggsy asks, seemingly idily.

Harry looks up from folding socks and scrutinizes the boy. He’s staring very hard at the ceiling. Harry thinks about it.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “My coordination is bad. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there. I like living here.”

Eggsy bites his lip. “You know, whatever’s best. I’ll come visit, honest, as much as I can. Me and the fam, J.B. too.”

“Oh, yes,” Harry says dryly, “bring the dog.”

Eggsy waves his hand. “So… what’s going on with you and Merlin?”

“On?” Harry asks, and tunes him out.

In terms of totally annoying, Eggsy reminds him sharply of Westley, but Harry loves it, warm in his home in a way he thinks is unfamiliar.

His memory is better with Eggsy around, things fall into focus with him there. He still occasionally misses things or can’t figure out how far away an object is, but generally, his life feels fuller with Eggsy and Hamish here, feels like part of his body has been snapped back into place. There are still things he’s not quite sure how to explain to himself. _Hey, why do I know what it feels like to be shot in the leg?_ is a hard conversation to have in your own head, especially of the answers are: _because you’ve been shot in the leg_ and _you used to be a super-secret super spy for a while, there._

But Eggsy does go home, and Hamish and Harry drive him all the way to SeaTac, even though Hamish could summon a jet with the tap of his pinky finger.

Harry misses him like a slow ache, and he calls nearly as often as Westley does.

“You coming back for my wedding?” Eggsy asks one afternoon, and Harry pauses folding his laundry.

“Of course,” he says. He doesn’t even have to think. 

Eggsy gives him a lopsided smile.

 

:::

 

**Epilogue:**

 

Harry passes another book up to Marilyn as she balances precariously on the ladder. She slides it in neatly next to the other volumes, stretching dangerously to do so, and Harry grabs another one and waits patiently for her to reach down again. At the front of the shop, the bell dings and Oscar meows in greeting.

“Hello there, fella,” Harry hears Hamish say.

“Is that lunch?” Marilyn asks, head snapping, pavlovian to the front of the store. Her hand goes slack and she drops the book Harry was trying to hand her. He sidesteps neatly and gazes up at her dark red curls.

They’ve built a routine here. Hamish has stayed. There has been no discussion of staying or leaving, it’s a taciturn agreement that wherever one needs to go, the other follows. They’ve made love. They’ve bought wedding bands, signed the papers, together officially in the eyes of the law since May 2016.

Almost two years ago, Harry Hart woke up in an unfamiliar secret base with an eye patch and a tremor in his hands. He was given a shitty car, a limitless black credit card and a small suitcase to carry things in. Two years ago, Harry Hart didn’t remember his last name or where he used to live. Sometimes, in the moments between breaths, Harry’s mind is wiped clean once again. But it never lasts. He used to need the storms, need them to breathe, to become alive again. Two years ago, Harry Hart was made up of tornadoes and hurricanes and lightning. He was made of stinging rain, snow, hail harsh against the soft undersides of arms. But that’s all changed now, isn’t it?

“Yes, I am lunch,” Hamish says, walking past the shelves, Oscar winding between his legs, attempting to trip him up. He’s carrying two brown takeout bags and smiling. Harry’s heart softens at the sight of him.

Marilyn scrambles down the ladder, nearly trampling Harry in her haste. He sidesteps her manic flailing expertly.

He steps forward, takes one of the bags from Hamish’s hands and kisses him, kisses him, kisses him, soft. He doesn’t need the rain when he’s got this. 

Harry Hart is made up of this: particles and atoms and elements; iron and phosphorus and zinc, traces of stars and meteorites but he is also made up of this: the beat of a butterfly's wings, the dust on his bookshelves, the way Hamish looks at him with that blank awe, like he's not sure how he ended up here, next to Harry. 

He is made up of hope and the things that come after you hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you're one of the friendly people Harry met throughout this whole fic: the world is made better by your being in it -- and if you aren't the friendly type, then maybe you should consider trying to be.


End file.
